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I had to do something. The countdown to 50 is rapidly, along with my mojo, counting down but my soul thinks life is just beginning. If you’ve been following along, you know that Bonnie showed up after Doug and I rented kayaks in Arkansas Memorial weekend and knew we had fallen in love with paddling when I looked to my right and spied my baby ogling at me with lust in his sparkly brown eyes. “I love you,” he said in his Texas twang.

Bonnie paddled alone for a couple of months while searching for the right companion to fit the bill. He had to be rugged and handsome and love adventure and road trips but still have room for an immense love for his girl.

He’s a little plain, but rough around the edges manly.

He has a bit of a limp and Bonnie does circles around him and beyond but she always comes back. Always. And he is a patient man. He waits for her knowing she’ll return.

They have love for no other. They’ve tried. But it seems every time she comes back, it gets better. It’s a shared bond that’s beyond words.

Oh the places they’ve been! We saw what we could through the bug-gut-splattered windows of a big rig. Now we’re exploring where an 18-wheeler or even a car won’t go. We paddle until we find places worthy of exploring. I fill up my iPhone with pictures and Doug tells me it looks like alligators live there. So I slow to a tiptoe while looking up and down and left and right as I seek unknown places while he hangs back and waits for me. We’ve come across hidden marshes that look more like a tropical paradise…

… Wooded hilltops where, to continue on the path I was on, I ducked under a tree and scared a gigantic vulture into dropping his prey from the treetops. There were the coolest trees with roots so big that they could quite possibly be a secret hideaway.

Smooth and rounded but steep (to a 48 year-old who doesn’t wish to add to a growing list of injuries that sometimes keeps her up at night) cliffs where the sand and water and wind has formed miniature arches. Like the ones they saw in Utah, except in a fairy size version.

If we go down, it will be side by side. And I have to say it’s been one hilly roller coaster ride! But we’re a new kind of Bonnie and Clyde. We’re keeping the love and the adventure but we’ll leave the guns at home. There will be no crime on my watch. We’re the kind of Bonnie and Clyde with pride for nature. I’m thinking of starting a campaign on cleaning up our lake. Keep Texas Trash Free or… something more lyrical. The amount of trash and broken glass people leave makes me tear up like that Indian commercial from back in the 70’s. I mean seriously, your Mama is not here to pick up after you and I shouldn’t have to either! But I do. I take Walmart bags and fill one or two up then take it away in the getaway vehicle to the dumpster . I can’t do it alone. Will you be my partner in pride for our beautiful lake?

Doug and I are going camping this weekend… who knows what secret coves and mystical woods and magical beaches we’ll find!

Follow me on Snapchat to find out with more up to date little adventures… shesgoingplaces

My husband ran away once. How dare him not take me! So I went to truck driving school and joined him. I had only been to 6 states before I became known as Mother Trucker. Our dachshund Lolo loved seeing the US too. She pooped in every state but Vermont, Alaska and Hawaii.

Remember Myspace? I had a blog on there where I would post stories like when Doug woke the bear (me) up to see this mini-Grand-Canyon-like canyon in Arizona. Or when the ice storm hit San Antonio and alllll the trucks were escorted by State Trooper into the Kerrville WalMart and packed in like sardines for the weekend and the Red Cross came to feed us and some truckers announced one morning on the CB that they were making coffee for everybody. Good times.

All that just tickled my wanderlust fancy. Now I’ve got this most annoying itch to see as many countries in the world as I can before I’m too old to do so. I figure I’ve got a good 20 years in me to see as many as possible. So I’m embracing… well, more like a quick friendly back pat and release… middle age and writing my own story by making every place I go, no matter how close or far, an adventure. When I’m not on a road trip, camp trip or plane somewhere, I’m on my kayak or doing a photo shoot or getting lake hair on a boat or hiking or chasing critters around my yard and posting it all on snapchat and Instagram.

Meanwhile, as I’m waiting for the Autumnal Equinox to get here to start an epic documentary of my 4 times per year survival training in the beautiful woods of Arkansas, I’m culling the shit ton of pictures I took while on the road so that I can post the best ones here on my website.

I guess maybe you’re wondering why I got off the truck. So I guess I’ll tell you! Living out of truck stops isn’t very invigorating. You can’t get the essence of our country from the Love’s and Flying J’s and rest stops… although I picked up a LOT of brochures of places I would have loved to have gone but couldn’t get to in an 18-wheeler. So after 5 years and seeing 99.9% of all the continental states, Lolo and I went home and grew a garden and canned salsa. But the whole experience was one I’m so grateful for and proud of. I mean I’m a girl who likes pretty lacy things and I learned to drive a big rig! You never know what you’re capable of if you want it bad enough! And I wanted to travel. And I got paid for it. So that’s how the wanderlust started. You know in that Interview with the Vampire scene where Claudia first becomes a vampire and says, “I want some more?” That’s me. Next country… the Philippines.